NorthLight School
The client
The NorthLight School aims to provide an engaging education for youth and prepare them for lifelong learning and employability. The school adopts an experiential approach in teaching and learning. Emphasis is given to nurturing the students’ socio-emotional development by recognising their achievements, encouraging peer support, and creating conditions to promote self-esteem.
The challenge
With an existing conference room that was fast becoming too small for its growing demands, NorthLight School wanted to build a larger conference room with high-end capabilities to better serve its staff and students. Besides being limited by the size of the original room, another challenge they faced was the audio set-up. Most of the time, 20 people had to share 2 handheld microphones, which was unproductive and a huge hygiene risk.
The solution
Sennheiser’s TeamConnect Ceiling 2 was installed in NorthLight’s new conference room to provide robust coverage and enhanced speech intelligibility. With the new audio installation, staff and students can now enjoy a seamless experience when attending meetings, discussions or giving presentations.
“The ceiling microphone from Sennheiser changed the way we conduct meetings and presentations. The high-quality audio and enhanced coverage exceeded our expectations. The TruVoicelift functionality as well as exclusion and priority zone features have also been really helpful and beneficial to our users. All in all, it was a positive experience working with Sennheiser and AV Media.”
An upgraded audio configuration for diverse applications
The new and larger conference room could accommodate up to 30 participants, which is significantly larger than the older room which could only accommodate up to 20. The conference room is regularly used by different stakeholders for meetings and school activities, such as collaborations with overseas institutions through conference calls, board of directors, departmental meetings and student presentations. To adequately serve all stakeholders and to allow users to better interact and engage with each other during meetings, the IT team considered the option of installing multiple gooseneck microphones on the U-shape conference table. However, the logistics and wiring proved to be too complex for execution.
After consulting system integrator AV Media, Sennheiser’s TeamConnect Ceiling 2 was recommended to NorthLight school for its high-quality audio, flexibility and for it being a completely touchless audio solution. Most important, it could solve the challenges that the institution is facing and meet their demands needs. Furthermore, the school had a very tight completion timeline and Sennheiser was able to readily deliver the product for installation.
The installation process by AV Media was smooth and straightforward. The system integrator was also able to customize the exclusion and priority zones to the end user’s preference via the Sennheiser Control Cockpit.
A ceiling microphone with multiple useful features
Since the installation, staff and students of NorthLight School have benefited from a seamless audio experience, including the various useful features of the TeamConnect Ceiling 2:
• The exclusion zone was configured based on the U-shaped meeting room setup which helped to ensure that noise produced in other areas of the large conference room would not disrupt the flow of the meeting and/or presentation.
• A priority zone was set to the 2 chairman seats at the head of the table, which is where the principal and department heads who often hosts meetings usually sit. This allowed the microphone to prioritize these speakers over others who may be speaking in the room
• The TruVoicelift feature increases speech amplification on-site and allows the speaker to be heard loudly and clearly from every corner of the conference room. Participants no longer need to raise their voices during meetings.
• TCC 2 is a fully touchless audio solution hence there is no need for any physical contact with the device. This greatly reduces hygiene risks, which has become exceptionally important in the backdrop of a global pandemic.
Improved engagement and audio quality with Sennheiser’s TCC 2
The stakeholders are pleasantly surprised by the performance of the TCC 2 ceiling microphone. Besides its exceptional audio quality and speech intelligibility, the dynamic beamforming technology allow participants to speak freely regardless of where they are seated. Students and staff alike are now more engaged and can participate actively during meetings, discussions and presentation, which is a huge plus point for an education institution that places huge emphasis on student engagement.
More about TeamConnect Ceiling 2.
